A middle-aged alcoholic joins Alcholics Anonymous and, after a psychiatric evaluation, he is committed indefinitely to a psychiatric institution under section 27A of the Queensland Mental Health Act. Storm was apparently inspired to write the screenplay after reading a newspaper report about a similar incident, and spent some months researching the film in psychiatric institutions and prisons.
The National Film and Sound Archive (NFSA) says of this film:
'Shot when director Esben Storm and producer Haydn Keenan were in their early 20s, inspired by the work of directors Cecil Holmes and Ken Loach, 27A was a milestone of the 1970s Australian feature revival, with a social realism at odds with much of the commercial Australian filmmaking then around it. The title refers to fine print once in the Queensland mental health act, which allowed for the indefinite detention of 'troublesome' patients. Robert Darra - one of the most honest and humble of acting presences on the local screen in the 1960s and '70s - plays the battered but resilient Queenslander Bill McDonald, struggling first with the grog, but then with a Kafkaesque system which keeps him on the leash of his bullying "nurses".'
Source: NFSA Calendar (http://www.nfsa.gov.au/calendar/event/3670-27a/). (Sighted: 11/10/2012)
